4/25/2009

◢◥◼⦁we live in the spaces built by our discussions◣◤▉▲

Jacob Sikker Remin, the founder of 8bit klubben and curator of Mikrogalleriet, is opening his first solo exhibition “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” in Gallery Machwerket, Århus, Denmark. The exhibit will show the BIGGEST pixel ever, a networked cube of fluorescent light tubes, 2D mobile barcodes and 4bit music.
I contributed some bits of text for it, and also made this by speed derailed remix of a 24 minute raw videostream that is part of the exhibition and contains quotes by Goto80 and me and collages by Thea Sikker Remin, animated by Raquel Meyers.
The following is an excerpt of the notes I send to Jacob.

◼
A pixel is a pictural element; the smållest element of a composition. This makes the pixel a subjective element, because the smallest element we can perceive depends on the receiver; it is not just dependant on a mathematical formula. "The picture element is a purely fictitious element" (Zworykin 1937).The dissonant pixelThere can only be a notion of dissonance or atonality when a larger amount of pixels follows a certain order. Like for instance in a computer screen, that has a dead pixel. This dead pixel is a typical disfunctional pixel. But can a pixel really be imperfect?
Malevich made the most extreme pixel compositions when he made his Black Squares and other monochromes (1915). These monochromes can be described as huge, empty pixels. During the course of time the (black) compositions became the airports for dust that landed on them and casted shadows of their own. While time passed, the big black pixels degraded and were broken up in smaller, uneven compositions. This shows that when you destroy one pixel, you actually just create new pixels. Therefore you can only deconstruct pixels. You can however destroy a bitmap.Every pixel entails a hidden world of endless virtual possibilities. Every time one opportunity is explored, we destroy its other possibilities. This is not a negative. This generativity is part of the pixels inherent core. The moment we explored this endlessness of opportunities, we want to unknow the known and get back to the sublime pixel.